Everyone thinks hell is a burning abyss of fire, when in fact, up until the medieval period it was believed to be an glacial wasteland. If you check out one of the most famous works, Dante’s Inferno, he depicts the very last level of hell to be the domain of Satan where it is a lake of ice. The worst sinners lay there, half submerged in ice positioned in various ways in the ice. Satan himself sits with his legs stuck in the ice and his wings flap to create the ice cold wind that freezes hell, while he tears the worst sinners from the ice and shreds them in his teeth. It’s a very vivid description if you read it. I love it. You see, it was thought to be frozen because distance away from God equals distance away from warmth, therefore cold.

Then later you have the Renaissance and the Baroque period where many religious works (both of doubt and of certainty) came out. This was the era of skeptics, also when the churches were most powerful. But it was here when the image of heaven and hell began to change into our modern understanding of it. Another well known work was written, Paradise Lost, by the poet John Milton. He decided to write a late epic poem about God and his battle against Satan. In the first few books he almost makes Satan appear as a hero. But overall it was an attempt to justify the ways of God to man. He describes Satan’s resistance against God and his ultimate fall. But he explains it as follows:

Satan was an early angel created by God. Satan viewed God as tyrannical (Milton creates the whole epic as an allegory of England politics during the 17th century in which a minority government of revolutionary puritans (= Satan, resistance, & revolution) attempted to overthrow the English monarchy, specifically King Charles I (= God and all that is supposedly good). Satan grew both envious of God and disgusted by God’s ways. Satan believed that he was as powerful as God (due to hubris) despite the fact that God created him, because Satan viewed himself as a separate sovereign being that God did not father correctly. Satan felt he raised himself and did so to become more powerful than God. When he revolts, he and the demons battle God and the angels, and Satan loses miserably. He is casted down into hell (created by God as Satan’s domain) where Satan and his fallen angels (demons) must spend eternity. They all lay chained to a dark lake of fire. Satan is the first to rise, then Beelzebub, and many other devils of all religions and myths in order of power. Satan uses the excuse that God had never displayed his full capacity of power, and that is why Satan’s efforts failed, because he underestimated God. Satan claims that if he knew how powerful God truly was, he would have never tried to revolt. But nevertheless, he does not look back (because there is no going back) and he creates evil and determines it will combat all holy. Satan motivates his troops and rationalizes with them about attempting to battle God again (Armageddon). Satan and his demons build Pandemonium (Latin for “all the devils“) out of gold and it becomes the capital of Hell. There they debate on what should be done to defeat God. Many suggest they harshly and violently invade heaven. But they conclude that they were already defeated employing those tactics. They eventually conclude the ultimate plan. Satan had heard of God’s last invention called “man” that is supposed to be his greatest invention. Satan concludes what better way to defeat God than by his own best creation. Satan invents sin and understands sin as being good, because it is good for hell, and anything good for hell can not be wrong. So Satan sees himself as justified. And it is soon after where Satan initiates his plan by reaching Adam and Eve. But see what Satan fails to realize the whole time is that, God let Satan do these things (after all he created Hell and the resources in it) as it is a part of his overall plan to make the world a perfect place (justifying the ways of God to man). Eventually Satan envisions infecting the world with sin and unleashing the Antichrist (the devil himself re-embodied as a man just as Christ was to God).

The shit is fucking fascinating. You guys should look it up if you haven’t. Milton interprets the bible when constructing the epic, but he also adds his own logics to the account. I can see why people are so swept away by the bible, because much of the common thought about the bible is influenced by poets and philosophers, who romanticized this shit until it is on some epic awesomeness. But hell, it’s just literature to me.